Vis wakes in the infirmary after more than a day of unconsciousness, in pain but alive. Aequa and Eidhin explain that Aequa pulled Vis off the device in the ruins, carried him back with unexpected help from Diago, and returned him to the Academy for treatment. Vis confirms that he remembers the strange words he spoke while under the device’s influence, including references to the Labyrinth’s gate defences, the sanguis imperium, and the Nexus.

When Veridius arrives, he tries to speak with Vis alone, but Vis insists that Aequa and Eidhin remain. The meeting quickly turns into a confrontation about trust. Vis accuses Veridius of sending Belli and others to die in the Labyrinth, and Veridius finally drops his usual restraint, angrily insisting that those sacrifices were part of the only plan he believes can save everyone from a larger disaster.

After regaining control, Veridius shifts the conversation to Lanistia. He recognizes the activation phrase Vis used and reveals that Lanistia spoke the same words seven years earlier after the Aurora Columnae and during Caeror’s Iudicium. Pressed by Vis, Veridius admits that Lanistia’s injuries came from using the same underground mechanism Vis just activated.

Veridius explains that the buried complex was built to bypass the Labyrinth’s defences and help someone get out. The device temporarily links a living person to the iunctii guarding the Labyrinth, creating a brief window in which that person can influence the system. If the process continues too long, however, the person is absorbed, dies, and becomes a iunctus. Lanistia was left on the device for nearly an hour while trying to save Caeror, which destroyed her mind, while Aequa saved Vis by interrupting the process early.

Vis realizes that Marcus must have used the same loophole, and Veridius confirms it: Marcus sacrificed himself to help Belli and, indirectly, to save Vis. Veridius also says the warning message on Vis’s arm did not come from Marcus, though it saved him as surely as Marcus did. With Vis demanding to know why Caeror ran the Labyrinth and how any of this could prevent another Cataclysm, Veridius prepares to reveal even more and asks a final, ominous question: whether Vis has ever heard of the Concurrence.